If you ask Clint Boston what the “awe-inspiring” lesson of Amber Crewse means to him, the Green Mountain High School cross country coach will tell you she reminds him why he coaches. And he might get choked up, explaining how her remarkable spirit inspires him.

“Actually, it makes me pretty emotional,” Boston said last week when I asked him about Crewse, his voice catching and eyes glistening. “I run by great kids all the time, but in my career I’ve maybe found one or two that touch me like an Amber Crewse — as a student, a runner and an athlete.”

A senior, Crewse wasn’t Green Mountain’s best runner this season. She didn’t even qualify for a spot on the nine-girl squad Boston sent to the Class 4A regional meet last week, missing her heartfelt goal by an agonizing 12 seconds.

But nobody meant more to the team than Crewse, who couldn’t run across the school parking lot when she first went out for the team three years and 30 pounds ago.

“A girl that couldn’t get out of the parking lot, barely walking, to changing her lifestyle, body type and mind-set has been an inspiration for me and the coaching staff for the last three years,” Boston said. “That was the awe-inspiring piece to it. It was a search for why I coach. And it was Amber.”

Hundreds of kids will converge on the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds on Saturday for the state championships, and most of the attention will go to the winners. But if there’s one thing we runners understand about our sport — a deep conviction we share as an article of faith — it is that there are all sorts of ways to define winning. And Amber Crewse, who was devastated when she missed the cut for that regional team, is a winner.

“When you’re running, it’s kind of your own personal score, your own personal time,” Crewse said. “It’s really up to you to do it, and you just want to prove yourself. The second you see that finish line, you just feel so great. It’s like your heart being lifted.”

I felt my heart being lifted just talking to this girl, feeling her determination and courage, trying to envision how difficult it must have been for her to go out for cross country with a body not yet streamlined for running, and then to embrace a sport that inspires proud T-shirts that say, “Our sport is your sport’s punishment.”

That’s so remarkable in a culture that spurns delayed gratification and awards “self-esteem” as an entitlement. Crewse earned hers, and it came hard.

“If you really do want something, you just have to work hard to get it,” Crewse said. “You can achieve anything, because when I started cross country, it was like 40 minutes to run a 5K. It was really hard at first, and I kind of wanted to give up, but I told myself I could do it.”

First she had to stifle that voice in her head that said she couldn’t.

“That voice was there constantly,” Crewse said. “When we would do team runs, I would immediately be the one in the very back. I was like, ‘Why did I do this? I can’t do this.’ “

But she kept at it. Every year, she was the team’s most improved runner.

“I had that feeling like I could get better,” she said, “and I could achieve a lot if I stayed with it and stayed focused.”

Then there was Boston, a devoted coach who knows when to be tough and when to be gentle, the kind of coach all parents want for their kids.

“He was one of the few people at first who believed in me,” Crewse said.

Boston watched an introverted girl become more outgoing, self-assured and a leader in the classroom. And she worked so hard at her running, teammates were amazed.

“A lot of people tell me because of how hard I work, that I’m an inspiration to them,” Crewse said. “I never really thought of myself as being able to be inspirational.”

When she missed making the regional team, she cried a lot and was depressed for days. She’s coming out of it, though.

“It just felt really bad, for a long time,” Crewse said. “I just had to remember where I started and where I ended. My worst 5K was like 41 minutes. My best is 22:38. I had to tell myself, ‘This is what I’ve done, nobody else can do this.’ “

The Post's ski and Olympics writer, Meyer covered his 12th Games last summer in Rio de Janeiro. He has covered five World Alpine Ski Championships and more than 100 World Cup ski events. He is a member of the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame and Colorado Running Hall of Fame. He regularly covers running and the Colorado Rapids.

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